


Happy Everything

by all_my_fandoms (marina)



Category: Stargate: Atlantis
Genre: Holiday, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-13
Updated: 2009-11-13
Packaged: 2017-10-02 14:26:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marina/pseuds/all_my_fandoms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first Christmas on Atlantis</p>
            </blockquote>





	Happy Everything

**Author's Note:**

> A Christmas fic written in 8 parts for the 8 days of Hanukkah, LOL. Beta by the fantstic kisahawklin, prompt by the fabulous anyanka_eg

Elizabeth shuffled the pages in front of her. "All right, I'm done. Anyone have any comments?"

Sheppard sat up and cleared his throat. Rodney could bet he'd spent the last ten minutes asleep with his eyes open, again. "Yeah, since it's almost Christmas on Earth, some of my guys have been wondering if we're going to have some kind of official event?"

"Well, that's a great idea!" Elizabeth considered for a moment. "Although Atlantis has such a wide variety of cultures, we should make it inclusive, encourage people to share their traditions and celebrate together."

She smiled that annoying, all-knowing smile again and Rodney couldn't help but roll his eyes. "Great, should we exchange presents and fill each other's stockings with candy, as well?"

Elizabeth reacted with her usual earnestness. "Well, sure! We should work out something for the presents, seeing as local stores don't exactly carry greeting cards..."

Sheppard leaned back in his chair. "We should pitch some ideas, give everyone a chance to--"

"Do you people not have enough work?!" Rodney interrupted. "The people in the labs, who are actually _busy_, could sure use your coffee-making skills if you're looking for something to fill up the day!"

Sheppard was the first to get over his shock. "So does the Grinch brotherhood have some kind of code or can anyone just join?"

 

2.

Two days later, Rodney received official summons to Elizabeth's office. Well, he received a cheerful email, but he suspected it was a trap. He was on his seventeenth consecutive hour in the lab and he was beginning to suspect the dust motes were plotting.

"What the hell is this?" Rodney said while glaring at the mysterious acronym. He turned the piece of paper over but there was no more writing.

"It's your Christmas present, Rodney," Elizabeth smiled.

Rodney made a conscious effort to calm down. "This is a piece of paper with some letters on it."

"It's an IOU!" Elizabeth stood up and came around the desk looking exasperated. "I thought it would be more useful to give you something like this than a piece of candy."

"What's wrong with candy? _This_," Rodney handed the note back to Elizabeth, "won't help me stay up and finish the project that one of those imbeciles decided could wait till next week!"

"No, but if you want to sleep in tomorrow and come in late," Elizabeth held out the note, "I'll pretend you've already heard Dr. Kusavichek's lecture on Major Breakthroughs in Botany Over the Last Seventy Years."

 

3.

A week later the halls were decked with things Rodney couldn't even classify. Some of the marines put up a large tree they got on PXC-766 in the mess, the useless botany department somehow managed to make the adjacent hallways look more like a jungle decorated by drugged out monkeys than a passage through the city of the ancients. Rodney felt certain that when _they_ had occupied the city no one thought to hold meetings on the best way to spread holiday cheer.

It wasn't that Rodney hated Christmas. He just didn't see the point of observing arcane, vaguely-religious rituals that had to do more with the axial tilt of the Earth than anything else, now that he was in a different galaxy. It wasn't even like Atlantis experienced drastic weather changes, the temperature was always the same inside the blue-gray walls. Most people, however, were sentimental idiots, and their ridiculous excitement reminded Rodney that he hadn't been such a big fan of Christmas back on Earth either.

Two of his scientists had apparently spent two weeks' worth of lunch breaks constructing their own Menorah out of Athosian leather and small pebbles that Sheppard had brought back from PZT-990. The slightly scary Dr. Helgersen, who invited herself to join Rodney and Carson at lunch one day, went on and on about something that sounded like a combination of 'yule' and 'jolly' and forced Rodney to join Sheppard's table the following day, in fear of her yammering.

Zelenka ambushed him as he was coming back from the bathroom.

"Did you see my email?"

Rodney wanted to quip about checking his email on the toilet but since he'd actually taken his laptop with him on several occasions, strictly as an alternative to either stopping his work or wetting himself, he decided to let it go. "What email?"

"The one titled 'IOU'?"

Rodney managed to glare and click 'send/receive' at the same time.

"What? It was Elizabeth's idea and I think it's an excellent way to conduct these matters under the circumstances."

Rodney felt his face go pale. "But…" He threw his hands in the air, "it says you'll… knit me a scarf!"

"Well, I was just being civil--"

"A scarf!" Rodney yelled. He wanted to yell something else but he couldn't find the words to describe how the concept of one of his employees knitting him something made him feel.

"_Bozhe_! You don't have to wear it." Zelenka shrugged and walked away.

 

4.

A few days later, Rodney noticed a strange smell coming from the mess as he and Sheppard were walking towards it, arguing about who was the best Green Lantern.

It smelled... sweet.

Inside, Rodney saw a huge line leading up to one of the counters.

"Do you smell that?" Sheppard finally clued in. "Smells like... cake!"

They walked to the head of the line and saw Ford, wearing an apron, handing out pieces of airy, brown dough. Sheppard's jaw dropped.

Rodney smirked. "Lieutenant!"

Ford noticed them and smiled. "Sir! Dr. McKay!" He called to someone on the other side of the line. "Hey Stackhouse, take over for me for a few. Thanks." Ford handed his apron to another marine and joined Sheppard and Rodney on the other side of the counter.

Sheppard seemed to have gotten over his shock. "Lieutenant, I didn't know you could bake."

"I can't sir, but my grandma can." Ford's grin reminded Rodney of a saccharine commercial where a ten year old boy was helping his grandmother bake Christmas cookies. The perfect opposite of his own childhood Christmas experiences. "She taught me a few things. Wait here, I'll get you some!"

 

The cake smelled delicious and yet like nothing Rodney had ever had, which was logical seeing as most of the ingredients were from Pegasus. Ford sat with them and explained how the flour was Athosian, and the weird nutty flavour was from the fruits they picked up on MPX-394 and so on.

 

Sheppard moaned in a way that couldn't only seem obscene to Rodney when he tasted the cake.

"So, Major, half your age and twice as useful to the expedition, eh?" Rodney took his first bite and couldn't help but close his eyes.

Sheppard swallowed the last of the cake. "Hey Ford, how did you get those oranges to taste so much like apples?"

Rodney choked while Ford tried to cover up his laughter.

 

5.

"Do you have any favorite Christmas songs?" Sheppard asked him a few days later, on the way back from a meeting.

"I don't even know how to begin to answer that question, Major. Also, why are you still walking with me? This is the way to my lab."

"You know that Winter Celebration party Elizabeth's going to have two weeks from now? Well, Teyla wanted to participate, get her people involved with our traditions and all that, and she managed to convince Elizabeth to let them provide the music."

Oh, fantastic, Rodney thought. "Fascinating."

"Yeah, and Teyla was really keen on that IOU idea Elizabeth came up with, so she handed out these little notes to people who could pick the songs she'd perform. Did I mention she's apparently the lead singer of some kind of Athosian indie band?"

When Rodney was a kid, Christmas was another day when both his parents were home and spent their time either fighting, trying to avoid each other in order to avoid fighting, or, sometimes, pretending for a few hours before getting on each other's nerves and... fighting. He never got any cool presents, it was all either sweaters or money (which came in useful when he got older) and he certainly never listened to any Christmas music.

 

6.

Rodney spent the two days before the Winter Celebration in the infirmary. It was supposed to be a simple recon mission, the bugs had come out of nowhere, and had turned out to be completely harmless, but their appearance hadn't been... comforting, and Rodney fell several times while trying to escape.

Rodney had been wearing his favorite T-shirt, the last one he had from earth that wasn't as old as Atlantis. He noticed it was torn along the seam when Carson was wiping the blood from his knee, before they put him in the gown.

Carson's X-ray machine was clearly malfunctioning because Rodney could feel his fractured wrist, but after the third result confirmed the first one Carson flat out refused to do another scan, as if Rodney needed reminding about how much radiation those things emit. Sheppard stuck around for all of it and didn't taunt him, which for some reason made Rodney feel even worse.

He spent the night contemplating his misery and trying to convince the doctor on call to administer morphine. The next day he found out Teyla's Athosian band had picked the hall next to the infirmary as their garage. Listening to aliens trying to get the lyrics to Jingle Bells right, he really was beginning to hate Christmas.

The next morning Carson came by to sign him out. He handed Rodney a little package, wrapped in disposable medical paper. Inside was his favorite T-shirt, seam mended.

"Merry Winter Holiday Rodney!" Carson smiled.

Rodney just blinked at him.

 

7.

The party wasn't the disaster Rodney thought it would be. For one thing, the Athosians thought to supply the one thing the expedition truly lacked - alcohol. It didn't taste like beer, but Ford swore it was made out of roughly the same ingredients.

One of the marines hung a giant 'Happy Everything!!!' sign from the ceiling and the mess was full of noise and ugly, colorful decorations as the band started playing.

Rodeny hadn't planned to stay for long, but after a few hours spent more enjoyably than he'd care to admit, he was a little light headed and flushed. He found Sheppard sitting silently and watching the crowd of scientists and soldiers dancing to the sounds of a different galaxy. Rodney thought the beer had to have a secret ingredient to convince so many of his staff to make idiots of themselves on the dance floor.

Rodney sank down into a chair next to Sheppard, reached into his pocket with a sigh and held out the note. Sheppard took another sip from the cup in his hand and kept staring ahead. Rodney snapped the fingers of his other hand impatiently, which finally got him noticed.

Rodney handed over the note and said, "Happy... Everything, Major."

Sheppard took an unfocused look at the text, then at Rodney. His eyebrows rose up in surprise.

Rodney rolled his eyes. "For God's sakes, it's not like you'll ever get to use it."

Sheppard kept staring with a horrified expression. "But... but... you can't know how to play the piano!"

"If there's any justice in the universe, I'll never have to prove you wrong."

Sheppard kept staring at Rodney but now his look was a little sad, a little surprised. It was annoying. "What? What is it? What's your special skill? Are you hiding '1 private Jumper trip' vouchers somewhere inside your hair?"

Sheppard's expression changed. He took another drink, put the cup on the floor, and stood up, towering over Rodney.

"Fine." Rodney rose from the chair, intending to leave, and found himself inches away from Sheppard's face. He was a little lightheaded from the alcohol and hadn't realized that Sheppard was standing so close to Rodney's chair. "Maybe your special skill is drinking alone in dark corners, what do I know." Rodney said more quietly than he intended.

Sheppard stayed silent for a moment, then leaned forward and kissed him.

 

8.

The IOU tradition continued through their second Christmas on Atlantis. Instead of just Teyla and her little 'band' any Athosian who wanted to participate in the party was welcome to and many did.

The decorations were even stranger the second time, and the weeks leading up to the party even more eventful as people brought back artifacts and adopted the traditions of some of the local cultures they'd visited off world.

Rodney had to admit, Christmas on Atlantis was easy to get used to. Traditions seemed to stick with him since he'd gotten here in a way they hadn't for the previous thirty-seven years of his life. At one point he caught himself telling Katie Brown that it wasn't Christmas without Athosian beer, and what was even more disconcerting was that Katie didn't think of telling him that second how ridiculous he was being. Elizabeth even asked him if he was feeling OK a few days after he stopped complaining about the obvious fire hazard the many colorful candles adorning the mess presented.

The beer also had company that year, in the form of a liquid that was a cross between wine and whiskey that Lorne's team traded an iPod for on KPR-557. The combination of the two turned into a cross-Atlantis experiment and was potent enough that in the morning Rodney thought he remembered himself surrounded by dancing scientists at some point before he passed out on his bed.

Rodney woke up only four hours after crashing because the blanket had been pulled off his legs and he was cold and needed to pee. Coming back from the bathroom he noticed a little sticky note on his laptop.

"This is pathetic!" he exclaimed and heard Sheppard turn over in his sleep. "I don't need an IOU for your dessert! Stealing your dessert isn't even a challenge!" Sheppard murmured something without opening his eyes. Rodney couldn't help himself. "This is the worst present ever!"

Sheppard turned to lie on his back, smiled faintly, and mumbled, "Happy Everything, Rodney," with his eyes closed.


End file.
